Car Hire Review
Overall, I had an excellent car hire experience. It was difficult finding a car hire site to fit my budget as I am under 25 y/o and most places charge astronomical amounts for people my age. I will say though, that there is one major flaw with this site.
When I booked my reservation I had no idea that the rental facility would require a credit card in my name until after I had already paid for my reservation. The site may have specified this in the fine print somewhere, but this kind of information needs to be made very clear, especially for first time renters like myself. Why would you even accept payment with a debit card, if a credit card is required to pick up the car? That to me is just setting people up for failure.
I myself do not even own a credit card, and was very worried when I found out that I may need one to pick up my car. I was shocked when I read further into the fine print and saw that a refund would not be given to someone who was unable to present a credit card... Really?! If you are unable to rent me a car because I don't own a credit card, that's fine, but give me my money back! If I pay you for a service that you end up not being able provide, but you still keep the money... thats called theft! My blood was boiling when I read that. Very poor business ethics.
Thankfully, however, Europecar was fine with me not having a credit card at the time of pick-up, and everything went very smoothly. Though this rental experience went great, you can see how it had the potential to go very bad.
Perhaps it was my fault for being too trusting and not reading, in detail, all of the fine print. I'll make a point to do that more in the future, but to be honest, something as important as this, shouldn't be buried the fine print. Make this point clear, and if you're going to require a credit card eventually, be consistant and require a credit card to book the reservation.
That's my only advice for improvement! Other than that, like I said, everything was great and I appreciate the service!